Why would you leave disaster relief to the states when natural disasters, as is often in hurricanes and tornadoes, can engulf multiple states?
Those are Mitt’s actual words
That is the question I had when Mitt Romney proposed in the CNN Presidential debate to defund FEMA and send it the states for them to worry about. Well much like the People’s general reaction to the government, they love it when they need it and hate it when they don’t. Unfortunately for Mitt Romney, and those who hate government, the need for FEMA became apparent in the wake of the tragic events of Superstorm Hurricane Sandy, which continues to put forward horrifying stories and countless damage. A new poll shows that a big majority of Americans believe that the Federal government does a better job of handling disaster relief, even a plurality of Republicans agree!
As I did last time, please consider making a donation to the Red Cross. They are making a difference now to people who have lost their homes and, far too often, their loved ones as well. While FEMA, state and local authorities have their hands full with getting life back to normal for the region at large, the Red Cross fills in the gaps, and provides the comfort, that the government just can’t provide.
Mitt’s FEMA would be as helpful as the customer service department at Home Depot
Which brings me to my original point. Fighting over the ideological and philosophical necessities of government should be reserved for a college course in political science. Instead, we are forced to defend the government from the endless barrage of attacks coming from the Right, who then shut the hell up when government proves its place in our society. Yet many progressives, including myself, do not, and never have, believed that the government is the answer to everything. Instead it is a team member in an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to disaster relief and getting things done in our country in general.
When the Republicans accuse the left of just about anything, it’s often a straw man, they have invented to fit their own arguments. Remember Clint Eastwood with the chair? If the real Obama were there, Clint wouldn’t have been such a jerk and Obama could have corrected Clint’s misinformation. So they debate the empty chair instead.
The Republicans often talk about state’s rights, and they often praise the Constitution as if it were a Bible, yet they seem to fail to grasp the reason the Constitution was created. For over a decade the United State’s sacred document was the Articles of Confederation, and the States were virtually autonomous, much like the EU. Yet the experiment failed so bad, especially economically, that it was replaced in 1789 with the Constitution.
Why?
Because the need for a strong Federal backbone had become so apparent, it even convinced skeptics. The question than became, how big a backbone? Yet when it comes to war and raising an army/navy etc., infrastructure development, the guaranteed rights of citizens and helping each other when one area is struck by disaster, the Federal Government does a better job, and this has proven out over our 236 year history.
Ending slavery? It had to be done at the barrel of a gun. Ending Jim Crow laws? It was the National Guard and Supreme Court that forced that. Even making sure that constitutional rights were applied to everyone. Did you know you didn’t have a right to an attorney unless it was a Federal case in many states like Florida until only a few decades ago? The Supreme Court forced the states to accept the Constitutional rights and apply them to everything. Up until then, state’s rights could be used to supersede Federal Constitutional rights.
What about the Interstate system? The meager and inconsistent efforts made by private enterprise provided poor road conditions until the US Highway System was established in the 1920s. A few states like California and New York than put forward their own efforts to create and build freeways, yet poor states like most of the South, would probably still be without decent highways if not for the Interstate System, signed by Republican President Eisenhower, it created the network of freeways that criss-cross the nation, establishing good routes for interstate commerce and the development of cities like Las Vegas, which would be a patch of sand without Federal highways.
Even Republicans love the Federal Government when it comes to defense. Mitt even wants to double the budget. From huge dollars handed over to corporations to build tanks and planes we don’t use to the socialized medicine provided to active duty members of the Armed Forces as well as to veterans, the military should contradict every ideological point they claim to adhere to, yet instead it becomes their model for how the government should run? Then why not bring that same efficient health care system to everyone?
Obama understands that a President has to be active for FEMA to work.
When it comes to disaster relief FEMA has been a big success as well. It has helped many in disasters like the Northridge Earthquake, which I got to witness first hand, by keeping order in the aftermath, giving hope in the interim and writing checks to help rebuild.
Oh but FEMA has failed, hasn’t it? During Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina. Who was in charge of the government in those cases? Let’s see, two Republican administrations with the same last name, Bush, and both were found to have fiddled with the organization, staffed it with incompetents like Heckuva Job Brownie and provided little attention at the White House level to the tragedies. That is, until it came back to bite them politically. Then, suddenly, they were trying to prove they knew how to use the Federal government, and made no efforts to, or even suggest something so idiotic as the disbanding of FEMA. In other words, it works if you work it.
So Republicans, who believe in the Federal government when it suits them should stop being contrarians and do what’s in the interest of ALL Americans, and that is to help each other out when times are tough, not leave a neighboring state to fall apart. It’s bad for everyone.
Once again, it’s not I the people, it’s WE THE PEOPLE!